"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Thursday, November 30, 2006

Freedom, Marching

The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.

The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.

Mr Halim was one of four teachers killed in rapid succession by the Islamists at Ghazni, a strategic point on the routes from Kabul to the south and east which has become the scene of fierce clashes between the Taliban and US and Afghan forces.

Holy shit. They're drawing and quartering teachers. I don't recall it being that atrocious there (though it was pretty awful by all accounts) even leading up to 9/11. But now, with a hostile, chaotic populace outside Kabul, and a porous border between Paktia/Paktika and Balochistan, the madrassa scum flow back and forth like an overripe sewer tide.

It may be indirect, but it is not too tenuous a connection to make -- this poor man died horrifically because certain people were so smug and self-righteous in wanting to move on to a different war, they not only didn't bother to finish up this one, they pre-emptively (and illegally) diverted $700 million that could have helped.

Not sure how much of the have-a-beer-with-Cooter vote still festers out there, but they are welcome to ponder this latest episode in that context, and maybe someday realize that this is what happens when you give a spoiled, petulant, ignorant child a job of such magnitude. Somebody else pays the price.